WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Elon Musk's dream of sending humans to Mars will become a national priority under President Donald Trump, sources close to the president-elect said, adding that the Mars lunar program NASA will be profoundly remodeled to give pride of place to SpaceX's ambitions.
NASA's Artemis program, which aims to use SpaceX's Starship rocket to send humans to the Moon before possible missions to Mars, is expected to focus in the coming years on sending unmanned vessels to the red planet, according to four people familiar with Trump's space policy agenda.
Wanting to go to Mars with spacecraft designed for astronauts is much more ambitious than returning to the Moon, but it is also a riskier and potentially much more expensive project.
Elon Musk wore an “Occupy Mars” t-shirt when he joined Donald Trump on stage at a campaign rally in October. The boss of SpaceX spent $119 million to support the Republican candidate, putting space policy at the heart of the campaign.
In September, shortly after formalizing his support for Donald Trump, Elon Musk told journalists that flights to the Moon were only a “launching pad” for the conquest of Mars.
“There is at least a concrete plan to go to Mars, that will become a goal,” said Doug Loverro, a consultant for the space industry who worked for NASA during the first Trump presidency.
SpaceX, Elon Musk and Donald Trump's campaign team did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters on this subject. A NASA spokeswoman said it “would not be appropriate to speculate on possible changes” under the incoming Trump administration.
The sources themselves indicated that the contours of the future United States space program were not yet completely defined.
The Artemis program was launched by Donald Trump in 2019, during his first term. It is one of the rare programs to have been retained by the Biden administration, but according to sources, those around the Republican president-elect consider that this space ambition has been neglected for the last four years.
MUSK TOO AMBITIOUS?
Elon Musk, also boss of electric vehicle maker Tesla and neurotechnology and transhumanism start-up Neuralink, presented reducing government regulations and bureaucracy as another basis for his support for Donald Trump.
In the field of space conquest, sources believe that the deregulation desired by Elon Musk could reduce the weight of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), responsible for supervising private rocket launches and accused by Elon Musk of having slowed down the development of SpaceX’s Starship.
According to these same sources, NASA should favor fixed-price contracts under the Trump presidency, which place the burden of budget overruns on private companies and could thus avoid the surge in costs which have burdened the budget of the Artemis program.
This change in billing system could put in difficulty the only rocket that NASA owns, Space Launch System (SLS), whose development under the direction of Boeing and Northrop Grumman has cost around 24 billion dollars since 2011. Pure cancellation However, this simple program would cost thousands of jobs and make the United States even more dependent on SpaceX.
Boeing and Northrop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Elon Musk, whose predictions have sometimes proved overly optimistic, said in September that SpaceX would land Starship on Mars in 2026 and that a manned mission would follow in four years.
Many industry experts consider this timetable too ambitious.
“Is it possible for Elon to send a spacecraft to Mars on a one-way mission by the end of Trump's term? Absolutely, he can certainly do it,” said Scott Pace, who led space policy under Donald Trump's first term.
“Could there be a manned mission to Mars? No,” he added. “You have to learn to walk before you run.”
(Report by Joey Roulette, French version by Tangi Salaün, edited by Kate Entringer)
by Joey Roulette
